


four lean hounds crouched low and smiling

by romans



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-18
Updated: 2013-05-18
Packaged: 2017-12-12 06:07:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/808173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romans/pseuds/romans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The air outside is strangely charged. It smells like pine leaves and churned earth and the tang of metal and blood, and even the stars are flickering above Will. Hannibal leads him out across the broad snowy fields, calm and assured and radiating tension all at once. He's like the string of a harp, coiled and tense, waiting to be plucked, or like a bow cradling a sharp arrow. He doesn't look back, but his grasp on Will's hand never falters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	four lean hounds crouched low and smiling

Will has just put out food for the dogs when a horn sounds, far off in the woods, and they go berserk. They rush en masse out of the propped screen door and by the time Will follows them, hands full of clattering bowls, they have disappeared. There's only a faint echo on the wind, a sustained note that seems to last a little too long.

Hannibal Lecter is standing on his front lawn, and he looks like he's been waiting for Will to come out. 

"Good evening, Will," he says. His suit is a soft tawny color and his shirt is green, and he's wearing a red tie. It should clash but it doesn't. In the dying light it looks like blood soaking into grass. 

The high, clear note is still lingering in the air, and it's starting to make Will's ears ring. Hannibal's eyes gleam strangely in the half-light, refracting red light from... somewhere. Will scrubs a hand across his face and holds the door open for his partner.

"I don't know where the dogs went," he says, letting Hannibal into the house. He doesn't mention the falling notes in the forest, the _hunting horn_ , because he's pretty sure he's the only one who can hear it. 

"They'll come back," Hannibal says. 

"Yeah," Will says. "For food, at least." They'll come back, he knows. They know where home is. They probably caught the scent of some animal- a raccoon, perhaps, or even a deer. A dog barks once, far off in the distance, and Will looks out of the kitchen window automatically. There's nothing to see but the last rays of the sun sinking beneath the treeline.

"Perhaps they're hunting for their dinner," Hannibal says. He smiles, strangely, as if there's something amusing about that, and then he looks serious.

"Do you hunt, Will?" he asks. 

"Once or twice," Will says. "With my dad, and with some of the guys from the force." He's more of a fishing guy, really.

"I'm going hunting tonight," Hannibal says, oddly formal. "I want you with me, Will Graham." 

The horn sounds again, a sharp sliding note like a sigh, and thunder rolls in the distance, though there are no clouds outside. 

"With you?" Will says. "What kind of hunt is it, anyways?" He's heard of night hunts, before, but he's never seen the point.

"A very old tradition," Hannibal says. "I think you would enjoy it. Please come."

Lightning snaps in the distance, and the thunder rolls again. The wind picks up, a little. Will feels a chill go down his back. Tonight won't be a good night to be outside. He knows it suddenly, instinctively. When he looks up to tell Hannibal, he has to suppress a scream.

Will sometimes morbidly traces the lines of Hannibal's skull beneath his skin, imagining the orbits of his eyes and the points of his cheekbones, the jut of his chin under the flesh. Tonight, though, he hardly needs to imagine it. Hannibal has shed his humanity like a skin, and all the suits in the world can't hide what he really is. 

He is still himself, but somehow he's _not_. Will isn't hallucinating this.

"Come with me," Hannibal says, and holds out his hand. "It is not safe to be alone tonight." 

The horn cries again, and is joined by others, and the baying of hounds. The thunder rolls exultantly in the clear skies. Will looks out the window one more time, at the dark bank of trees across the field, and then he reaches out and takes Hannibal's hand. 

"Trust me," Hannibal says. It sounds like an instruction and like a plea. Like something out of a fairy tale. _Don't stray from the path. Don't talk to the big bad wolf. Don't look at the fair folk, for they are not kind._

The air outside is strangely charged. It smells like pine leaves and churned earth and the tang of metal and blood, and even the stars are flickering above Will. Hannibal leads him out across the broad snowy fields, calm and assured and radiating tension all at once. He's like the string of a harp, coiled and tense, waiting to be plucked, or like a bow cradling a sharp arrow. He doesn't look back, but his grasp on Will's hand never falters. 

_Don't let go._

The stag is waiting for them at the edge of the woods, feathers gleaming in the final fading rays of sunlight. Hannibal helps him to mount the stag's broad back, never letting go of his hand, and then he hauls himself up in front of Will. He is gracefully inhuman. Will shivers and then wraps both arms around Hannibal's slim waist. The stag's feathers shift silkily under his legs. Hannibal rolls his shoulders, pressing against Will, and cracks his neck, and suddenly he's holding a sword in his hand. It's long and flat and thin, and the shape makes Will think that it must be very old indeed. Rust is eating away at one side of it, and Will can see bloodstains around the whorls and planes of the pommel. The leather is black with blood, and Will wonders how many times it's been used. 

It looks like an extension of Hannibal's arm. 

In his other hand he has a horn. It's small, and battered, and looks as old as the sword. 

"Don't let go," Hannibal says. His hands will be full, and he will not catch Will if he falls. Will nods, and rests his head against the back of Hannibal's neck. Out of the corners of his eyes he can see his dogs coming out of the woods, tails wagging, to join the hunt. There are other things in the woods, too, people and animals and god knows what- 

He feels Hannibal's chest swell under his arms and the horn sounds a short, sharp, rising call. Hannibal slings the horn over his shoulder and gives the stag a sharp kick, and the dogs yelp, and they take off. Will buries his face against Hannibal's back for a moment, childishly frightened. 

" _Look!_ " Hannibal shouts, abandoning all pretense of restraint and elegance. "Will. Look!" He sounds gleeful. 

Will lifts his head up and meets the gaze of the rider next to him. The man is as gaunt and inhuman as Hannibal. His eyes are gold, and he has horns on his head. When he smiles his teeth are strange and sharp, and then he's gone, lost in the crowd. There are other men there, and women, too, dressed in clothes from every period, crowned with metal and plants and bone, and soldiers, too, riding blank-faced in their ranks. There are a few dazed hunters with orange vests and rifles. Red-eared hounds race ahead of the horses, baying to the skies. The sound reminds Will of Tobias and his horrific music. 

A flock of geese slides by. Below that, Will's house is a point of light adrift in a sea of fields and shadowy woods, impossibly tiny and far away. 

_See? See?_

Hannibal laughs, open-throated and loud and delighted, and a herd of deer break from their cover in the trees. His body shakes against Will's. 

"Do you see?" Hannibal shouts over the din, and Will finds himself smiling. His blood is up. The wind blows his hair back and he blinks tears out of his eyes, as they chase after the terrified deer on the ground. 

This is Hannibal's element. This is who Hannibal is. Yes, Will sees. 

"You killed them!" he shouts, even though he's not sure who he's talking about (girls on antler racks, laid out like offerings, flash unbidden into his mind). All he knows is that Hannibal has killed, and will kill again, because it is his calling. It is his lifeblood. 

Hannibal, Will thinks, as they dive out of the sky to sweep the deer up, swords and bows and guns bright in their hands, isn't a murderer. He's- whatever this is, this strange wild thing that Will has no name for- he's this, and he's not murdering. He's hunting people, because he has to. He needs to eat. He always has, and he always will.

Will could arrest him, build a case, put him away for a few decades, but one night a cloudless storm would roll over the countryside, and Will would be out alone at night. Will knows this, a bone-deep certainty inside of him. 

Hannibal will always win this game. He would gut Will as easily as a hunter guts a deer. But he doesn't want to. 

The antlered man is riding at the head of the pack, with Will's dogs leaping after his horse, and he turns to look back at Will. Will meets his gaze for a long moment, and then he rests his head against Hannibal's shoulder again. For a moment it's just them, the feel of Hannibal's muscles shifting under his clothes, the heat of his body against Will's. Will lets his eyes drift closed and and imagines a future where Hannibal is his friend, or his bedmate. Where he is riding with the hunt instead of standing outside, small and vulnerable. Where he lets Hannibal hunt his prey. Golden eyes flash in his mind, and then the hunt touches earth. It's jarring but Hannibal never lets Will fall. 

He can be the hunter or the hunted. Hannibal is giving him this gift.

The deer, fleet and moon-dappled, race ahead of them.

Will lets go of Hannibal and unholsters his gun.


End file.
